Fall into Darkness
by Sarryn
Summary: (AU) Reincarnated, a six year old Carrot is kidnapped by Sacher(Zaha) Torte, but the world's destruction doesn't happen. Running out of time, Big Mama must send out her Sorcerer Hunters and kill the boy. No one will be unscathed. (Yaoi, S(Z)xC)
1. Chapter 1

Fall into Darkness

The slam of a screen door and the excited cries of a small child rent the warm summer morning. The young, black-haired boy waved away the cautions of his gentle mother and sent her smile. The woman sighed happily as she watched her son play in the backyard, yet she couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. She shook her head to dispel the irrational worry nagging her mind and decided to simply enjoy watching her son play in youthful innocence. Besides the seven foot high fence about the backyard would prevent both her son from wandering off and anyone from coming in unannounced. He would be alright. With a satisfied nod she turned and went back inside.

The boy hardly noticed his mother's absence as he raced towards the sandbox. As soon has he had plopped himself into the damp sand, he began to construct a grand city, at least to him, of sand and anything else he could grab. When the grainy city filled one corner of the sandbox he stood up and promptly set about demolishing his hard work. He repeated the process several times, each time laughing with uncomplicated joy.

"Why do you destroy your cities?" a quiet voice asked. The boy paused with one foot raised in preparation to flatten another sand city. He craned his head around as far as it would go in order to look over his shoulder. He found a tall stranger dressed entirely in black waiting patiently for his answer. A warm summer wind ruffled the man's jet hair and caused his coat to billow out like black wings.

"Because," the boy answered in the same manner as his parents. Most of his questioning of the reason why he had to brush his teeth, take a bath and things like that met with the answer of 'because'. He found it fun to be able to say that to an adult for the first time in his six and a half years of life. 

"That's not an answer, young one." The boy shrugged impishly and brought his foot down upon the hapless sand city. Actually he tried to, but some force beyond his ken prevented the encounter. He frowned in childish puzzlement and pulled his foot away. He awkwardly inspected the sole of his shoe for the cause of his inability to crush the city. The man chuckled softly and the boy turned to face him.

"Did you do that?" The man nodded briefly, smiling all the while. "How?"

"Magic."

"Magic's not real. My friend told me so."

"Are you sure?" The young boy nodded confidently. His friend was a whole year older and so he knew, or so the boy thought, a lot more about the world and about things that parents were disinclined to tell their children. 

The man snapped his fingers and the sand city, mercifully spared from the tyrannical whims of a small child, exploded. The boy gasped and backpedaled frantically to escape the clods of damp sand flying at him. He ended up landing on his rear in a rather undignified manner. He turned frightened and awed eyes to the man dressed in black.

"That's...magic?"

"Yes," the man replied with a knowledgeable smile. "Would you like to learn?"

"Learn magic?" the boy asked eagerly.

"Yes."

"Now?"

"You are still impatient in this lifetime," the man observed.

"What?"

"Nothing." The boy cocked his head to one side and regarded the man quizzically. "Now, tell me why you destroy your cities." The boy opened his mouth to issue another flippant remark, but a strange, compelling power in the man's violet eyes stilled the lies.

"I wanted to make new cities, better ones too."

"Then I shall teach you magic and you shall learn how to destroy whole worlds and build them anew, until you find your perfect world." The man held out one black-gloved hand to the mesmerized child.

"Okay," the boy answered with wide, trusting brown eyes. He put one small hand in the man's larger one without a second thought. "But I have to be back for lunch. Mom's making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches." 

"Do not worry, young one. Everything will fall into place according to its fate."

***

"Dammit. I'm too late." The purple-haired man watched the frenetic movement about the boxlike house across the street where a hysterical woman explained to one of several police officers the cause of the disturbance: her missing six year old son. With a sigh of self-disgust he jumped down from his perch and left.

***

10.4 years later.

***

"Big Mama, we've found him at last." 

"Where?"

"He's...attending high school."

"I'm surprised Sacher Torte has finally allowed him into the public view without cloaking his presence. He must be very confident."

"He hasn't destroyed the world, yet. So he must have some purpose behind this move."

"Perhaps we have something that he needs in order to fulfill his desire."

"This might be a trap."

"Yes, Mille Feuille, it might very well be, but now we have time for the next move is ours."

***

Carrot Torte glanced at the line of girls running track down on the field. They looked so inviting in their clinging tops and shorts, but he couldn't bring himself to chase after them. He sensed that maybe under different circumstances, in a different life, nobody would've been able to stop him. He had been receiving similar impressions lately and he was at a loss to explain why. It was almost as if he wasn't living the life he should, but that was crazy. 

He closed his dark-brown eyes and stretched out on the metal bleacher. The weak spring sun valiantly attempted to chase off the lingering chill of winter, but all it did was sprinkle mottled shadows upon his face from the leafy boughs overhead. He liked the spring more than any other season. It always filled him with a sort of hope that never manifested during any other time of the year. Possibility and newness flourished in spring. At times like this he couldn't bring himself to believe things were as bad as his mentor believed they were. Did he really want to destroy the world?

"Carrot." The young man opened his eyes and looked about. Seeing no other person on the bleachers, he bent down and looked under them instead. He found an oddly dressed woman with purple hair waving at him from underneath. He waved back uncertainly. She seemed familiar, but he was almost certain that they had never met before. 

"What is it?"

"Come down here." 

"You come up here."

"Okay." He blinked and found her gone. He leaned down farther and banged his head on the metal when someone tapped him gently on the shoulder. He cursed loudly and sat up. The woman stood before him, smiling cheerfully. 

"How did you get up here so fast?" he demanded rubbing his aching head. 

"Magic." A prickling went up his spine. He had had this conversation, or one like it before.

"Magic doesn't exist." 

The woman winked coquettishly at him and leaned closer. "Yes it does." The young man shook his head, and then regretted it as the dying pain flared up. Wincing and massaging the rising bump, he moved away from her. The closeness of her proved very disturbing. A deeply rooted ambivalence seethed along his nerves, which was odd because he usually associated that feeling with his guardian. 

"Anyway, how do you know my name? I haven't seen you around here before."

"Oh, I know you...from a long, long time ago." The woman giggled and again moved closer, causing him to again scoot away.

"Are you a friend of my guardian?" Carrot felt as if he was falling from a great height and didn't know whether the landing would soft or bone-crunching. He couldn't think of any other reason for her knowing him. Perhaps she had met him when he was too young to remember, though his guardian never really seemed like the sociable type and even less likely to make a female acquaintance. The coy smile on her face froze and then turned into a sad, bitter line.

"I was." 

He floundered about for something else to ask her, the feeling of falling only intensifying. Her amber eyes watched him with unnerving purposefulness. He had to look away in order to think correctly. 

"What do you want?" He could've slapped himself. He probably sounded like some bad horror cliché. At least the woman's smile returned, in force. 

"I just want to revive your memories."

"What?" She held out a gently pulsing crystal orb. He stared at it with trepidation. "What is that?"

"Take it, Carrot. I think it will explain a few things." Her voice became commanding, undeniable and filled with the kind of authority that made a person obey without question. He took the orb. 

A horrible, almost inhuman scream pumped from his straining lungs and ripped out of his mouth. Razor blades of agony ripped through the delicate tissue of his brain and pounded out through his limbs, along his arteries and around his burning eyes. He grabbed his bursting head, dropping the orb, and screamed again as something deeply buried tried to explode outward and split his consciousness in two. 

"Carrot, calm down. Don't fight it." A face swam briefly before his eyes and then faded into a chaotic sea of sightless effulgence. 

He tried to call for help. He had to tell someone that he was falling, falling and couldn't stop. He was going to hit and it would hurt. It could be no other way. 

Why didn't someone help him?

***

"Mille Feuille." The purple-haired man froze. Beneath him the young man thrashed about as his expertly suppressed memories attempted to surface in his conscious mind. 

"Sacher Torte," he murmured, warily watching the black-haired man standing calmly at the bottom of the bleachers.

"Mama's trinkets won't uproot this boy's past memories. Only I can do that."

"And I'm guessing that you don't want to."

"No. Now would you please leave my ward alone. You seem to be distressing him."

Mille cursed in frustration, torn between driving a fist into the former Haz Knight's face and restraining a convulsing Carrot. A sudden, violent gust of wind buffeted the purple-haired man and he had to close his eyes. When he opened them again he found Sacher standing beside him.

"Damn you."

"That has been done already. Now leave, Mille Feuille." Sacher glanced over his shoulder. The Haz Knight his gaze and made the unwelcome discovery of a crowd beginning to gather at the bottom of the bleachers. The jet-haired man raised one dimly glowing hand and gestured at the milling people. "However, if Big Mama has abandoned her principles of not involving innocents, then I will fight your for possession of the boy."

"You will never change, will never compromise. Will you?"

"Will you?" Sacher countered with an enigmatic smile. 

"No, and neither will Big Mama. This is not over, Sacher. We won't let you destroy the world."

"Again."

"What?"

"Destroy the world again."

"Of what do you speak?"

"As you said, Mille, this is not over. Now go back to Mama with your tail between your legs like a good little Haz Knight."

The purple-haired growled with frustrated rage and vanished.

"And everything falls into place." The jet-haired looked down at his still writhing ward. He laid a black gloved hand on the boy's damp forehead and mouthed a few words. Almost at once the boy's frenetic movements stilled and he sagged against the metal seat. "She still thinks herself in the right, and now she wants you to remember. She is persistent in her vision."

***

Carrot Torte awoke to a body filled with many small aches. A strong hand prevented him from jerking up right in surprise when he discovered that he was now in his own room. He turned his head and found his mentor sitting in a chair next to his bed.

"What...happened?" Dimly he remembered a strange woman and pain, lots of it. 

"Go back to sleep, young one." 

"Who was...?"

"Sleep."

The young man drifted back into a world filled with darkness and vaguely anxious waiting. Then he fell and everything burned with demonic fury. Somewhere deep in his dreams four voices called his name.

***

From Sarryn,

There it is. This is the unrevised, first edition of this story. I may revise it later on, but for now I'm just going to post it. So will there be pairings? Most definitely, but I'm not telling what they are yet. 

Please review, no flames, and have fun reading and writing. (I wish more people would update. There are a whole bunch of stories that I've read and am now eagerly awaiting the continuations.)


	2. Chapter 2

Fall into Darkness

"Sacher…" The man smiled coldly at the woman's wounded sigh.

"I found your little attempt to reawake Carrot's memories very amusing." The woman flinched, but didn't look away from the man's piercing, sardonic eyes. 

"I won't let you use him for your foul cause, Sacher," Big Mama told him quietly. 

"You can't really prevent me, can you? It is fate. Fate keeps bringing us together. Do you know why?" Sacher demanded. The woman shook her head, sorrow and painful memories swimming in her beautiful eyes. "Fate isn't satisfied with the outcome. The worlds we have inhabited were not perfect. Why else would we struggle so?"

"There would be no struggle if you—"

"There will _always_ be a struggle, conflict. Whether it is between parsoners and sorcerers or the rich and the poor, conflict will never end, inequality will always exist." His voice thundered through the arching room.

"I will stop you." The man laughed.

"Stop me? How, woman?"

She looked away this time, tears glittering in her long lashes. "I'll send them…after Carrot." All amusement faded from the man's face. He stared at her with boreal coldness.

"And will they do that? Will they kill their former companion?"

"Yes…" He glared at her for a moment and then smiled.

"You haven't fully revived their memories have you?" The woman remained silent. Sacher threw back his head and laughed loudly. "You and I are not so different, are we? We both withhold critical information from our pets and we both sacrifice all for our ideals."

"We are not the same! We aren't…"

"You keep telling yourself that, Mama. Maybe someday you'll finally convince yourself of that. You cannot hope to save this corrupted world if you won't see the truth." He smiled cruelly and turned to leave.

"Sacher!" She straightened and pointed one imperious finger at him. "I will save this world, even if I have to kill Carrot!"

"Isn't he an innocent in your little book of morality?" the former Haz Knight sneered.

"I will sacrifice one for the better of all. I have learned something about the world from you, Sacher. You cannot possibly call me naïve."

The man chuckled bitterly. "You still are, my dear. You think a single sacrifice will change the course? The fate of this world was sealed long ago. We both know this."

"Perhaps, but that doesn't mean I shall simply acquiesce. We were reborn to change the future of this world. I know that."

"So you say."

"I do, Sacher. I believe that, know that, with all my heart and soul."

"Perhaps you shouldn't let your simplistic fantasies rule your judgement, Mama. As it stands you may send your little assassins after my Carrot, but they will fail. Oh, and don't send that insufferable Knight to try and awaken the boy's memories. Only my power can do that." He faded in a crackling of black lightning. 

The woman sank to her knees and cradled her face in her elegant hands.

"Carrot…" she whispered brokenly. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me…"

***

"But I have to go," the young man complained from his position on the king sized bed. The older man ignored him as he continued to dress. "The government says so. Besides I have midterms in a few weeks. Missing even one day is gonna bring my grades down."

"And when have you ever really cared about grades?" Sacher Torte inquired dryly. Carrot Torte pouted and then sighed.

"At least tell me why?" The older man finished adjusting his tie and glanced back at the disgruntled teenager. The young man glared defiantly at the rumpled sheets around his waist.

"You know what you are and you can do." Carrot nodded briefly. "I have enemies who have a different view on how to bring about a better world. Suffice it to say they disagree with my methods and will do almost anything to stop me. They are even willing to kill you, young one." 

"But I thought…"

"The only way to stop you is to kill you," Sacher told the young man evenly. Carrot paled and began to anxiously fiddle with the sheets.

"Why?" he asked softly. He heard the rustling of cloth and looked. His mentor stood beside the bed with a faintly amused look on his face. 

"Do not worry, young one." The older man firmly grasped the youth's chin and leaned down. "You are mine and I will never let you go." Carrot sighed softly as his mentor firmly pressed his lips against his own. Hesitantly he reached out and grabbed onto the older man's shoulders, trying to deepen the kiss. A small whine escaped his throat when Sacher pulled away and shook his hands loose. 

"Sir…?"

"No school and that's final. However, if you must leave then take Éclair with you." The young man grimaced at the mention of the surly blonde's name.

"Why her? She doesn't like me. She's always glaring at me." The former Haz Knight smiled with indulgent amusement. 

"She will accompany you," he replied in a tone that allowed no further argument. Carrot glowered at a spot over the older man's right shoulder.

"Fine."

"Good, I'll have my secretary call you in sick." With a satisfied nod the older man left the room. Carrot stuck his tongue out at the closed door in a fit of childish pique. Great, there went his day. Not that he minded missing school despite his outcry over his grade point average. It's just that he didn't want to have to put up with that girl's glaring and cutting replies. And of course there was the little fact that his mentor's enemies were planning on killing Carrot. Then again no one ever said changing the world was going to be easy.

***

Okay, so this one was shorter. I couldn't help it! Hey Teno Hikari, this one's for you. It's Carrot and Sacher (Zaha) just like you wanted. Mostly manga based, but also a healthy dose of the anime.

So to the rest of you, thanks for reading and reviewing the previous chapter. Feel free to review this one and no flames please.


	3. Chapter 3

Fall into Darkness

Carrot Torte sighed as he glanced over at his sulking and decidedly unfriendly companion. Éclair stared purposefully out of the tinted car window from behind a pair of mirror-like shades. Neither deemed it worthy to break the disquieting silence. Mentally he griped at his mentor for forcing her to act as a bodyguard. So what if someone was out to kill him? If he stayed in the heavily populated areas no one could touch him without a roomful of witnesses. He cut another glance at her and caught the tail end of a particularly hateful glare. He rolled his eyes and settled further back in the seat.

He knew why she acted like that around him: she hated him. Of course she wouldn't let it show in front of Sacher, though the older man probably knew. Not much escaped his notice, including bad grades. Of course the reason for her intense animosity towards the young man lay in the fact that she loved their guardian, loved him in a way that Carrot could never find in himself though he shared the man's bed. That too added fuel to the fire. 

A sly grin drew his lips up as he thought about her reaction to the discovery. She had nearly killed him, but their mentor had intervened, reminding her that Carrot was necessary to realize his dreams. Of course, after the older man had left, she had left the young man a poorly veiled threat. She didn't like him being their mentor's favorite and his lover. 

Who would have guessed that the little blonde brat would turn into such a surly teen? She had always been his rival, though he hadn't realized that at the time. She worshipped their mentor and despised Carrot as her ultimate foe. That was until Sacher explained why he needed the young man. Normally the teen wouldn't trust his life to someone who would be more than happy to end it, but she wasn't protecting him for his own sake. She was doing that for her idol. If the older man told her to do something she would do it or die trying.

"We're here," Éclair announced coldly. The locks clicked open and the two teens opened their respective doors. Carrot grinned good-naturedly at the frowning blonde and strolled happily towards the shopping mall. "Hold on."

"What?" he demanded as she clamped one strong hand about his upper arm. 

"We are not staying here more than two hours. Lord Sacher specifically stated that you aren't to remain in one place for more than two hours outside of the house."

"I know what he said." Why did she have to call the man 'lord'? He respected their mentor, but not to that fanatical extent. 

"You had better once we get inside and don't think that you'll give me the slip for a moment."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Carrot replied, shrugging her hand off. She lowered her shades for a moment to give him a suitably potent glare as a warning. "Okay?"

"Two hours." The blonde signaled to the driver and the car started up and drove out of sight.

"Fine." The two unwilling companions stalked across the parking lot, wishing to be anywhere but with each other. 

***

Carrot viciously jabbed his frozen yogurt with a plastic spoon while imagining that it was the brains of a certain bodyguard. Said bodyguard stood a few feet away scanning the crowd as if she expected an attacker to leap out from behind one of the many trashcans situated about the food court. It was a good thing he didn't feel like trying to pick up girls. What would they think when they saw a suspicious, leggy blonde shadowing him like a tenacious yip-dog? Okay, a very dangerous and deadly, tenacious yip-dog. 

He really didn't know why he had chosen to go to the mall out of all places. It had seemed like one of his more brilliant ideas until he had actually reached it. Well, seeing Éclair act like a freak was a bonus, but then she did that a lot. 

She cast him a glare that made him glad that she wasn't within touching distance of him. His arm still smarted from her earlier grip. 

"Carrot." He turned his head and found that strange, purple-haired woman leaning casually against a pillar at the other end of the food court. She beckoned to him urgently. He glanced at Éclair, found her determinedly glaring at passersby, and quickly left his seat. For a second he thought it odd that she wasn't jumping on him for moving an inch without her approval. Then he shrugged and decided that he was better off without her doing that. 

"Hey," he murmured as he came to a stop before the woman. He noted that she was much taller than him, which he found disconcerting. "I'm sorry about the other day. I really don't know what happened. I remember you…and that's it." A sharp stabbing pain imbedded itself behind his temples as he tried to remember their first encounter. 

"That's alright. I understand completely," she replied with a slightly bitter chuckle. "Are you feeling better?" 

"I'm fine. So what were we talking about anyway? Before I blacked out?" The woman giggled softly and leaned towards him with a conspiratorial wink. The young man inched away. Falling, why did she make him feel that? Why did she seem so familiar?

"It was nothing important. So, indulge me a question or two before I have to leave."

"Leave? Where do you have to go?"

"A…business meeting."

"Sounds boring." The young man rolled his eyes thinking of all the meetings his mentor went to. The adult world seemed like a larger burden than was worth bearing. Maybe that's why his mentor was so determined to change it. 

"So can I ask you a few questions?"

"Sure. What do you want to know? Wait…are you a journalist?" The woman blinked amber eyes and smiled widely. 

"No, just a curious friend. How are your parents doing these days? Everything fine, I hope." 

Carrot frowned and cast a quick glance at a surprisingly oblivious Éclair. His parents, he really couldn't remember them. He couldn't recall much of his childhood up to the point when Sacher became his guardian. Dimly a memory of a dark haired woman smiling tenderly at him trailed through his mind, but he couldn't remember anything of a father.

"I don't know. I think they're dead. Sacher Torte is my legal guardian so I assume they're dead. I never really thought about it."

"You've never thought about who your parents are…were?" the woman asked incredulously. Flashes of light crawled across his vision as the headache grew in proportion. He had to leave, had to get out of there. If he continued to talk to this strangely familiar woman, then he would fall worse than he had ever fallen before. 

"Carrot!" Éclair's harsh voice sliced into his reeling consciousness and pulled him back from that unfathomable edge. 

"What?" he demanded, turning to face the approaching blonde whirlwind. 

"Be careful what path you choose, Carrot." He turned back the woman.

"What did you say?" The woman touched his cheek gently, a deep sorrow shimmering in her amber eyes. 

"What are you doing, Carrot?" The young man winced at the younger girl's steel voice. He would have to placate her, and fast. 

"I'm just talking to…"—the woman had vanished—"a person who isn't here anymore." Éclair rolled her blue eyes and mouthed a silent insult. 

"We are leaving now."

"But you said two hours—"

"You tried to give me the slip. If you won't cooperate, then I have no choice but to end this little trip." The two teens glared at each other for a minute. The young man heaved a resigned sigh and yielded. 

"Fine. Let's go home."

***

A fourteen-year-old, trained assassin…he was ridding in a car with one of those. A fourteen-year-old trained assassin who was currently very pissed off. Carrot sunk further into the leather upholstery and felt a fleeting sense of déjà vu steal over him. In fact that feeling was actually very close to the truth. He had come to the mall in a very similar situation and was now leaving in it again. 

The girl should really lighten up, he thought cutting a quick glance in her direction. She had always been a moody, brooding girl, always staring darkly around, never relaxing. Tension always filled her wiry body, as if she was about to explode into violence. However, ever since her fourteenth birthday, she had become worse, and he knew why. 

An expectation had slowly built up inside of her through the years and its culmination would never come. It was last year that she had found out about him and Sacher. She had asked—demanded while choking him—him when it had started. Fourteen, the magical number that she so anticipated. His fourteenth birthday had been the night their mentor first taken him. He wouldn't dare to call it something so mundane as sex or 'making love'. He remembered his fourteenth birthday with a mixture of fear and uneasy lust. Yes, that was the first time, but not the last.

Éclair's fourteenth birthday had passed uneventfully. She had been unusually less grumpy than normal. Her longing gazes upon their mentor had been filled a sort of trembling anticipation. An anticipation that hadn't been fulfilled. There had been no cake, there never was or would be for either of them, and all their mentor had given to her that night was enough money to go out and buy something at the mall. 

Carrot had been the one to receive the nighttime visit, and the young girl had never forgiven him. 

A flash of light and the subsequent roll of thunder alerted him the beginning of a bad storm. He glanced out the window to watch the first bloated drops strike the dirty asphalt. Spring storms made him uneasy. He liked everything else about spring save the drenching storms that raged through with destructive impatience. 

Destruction…

He had the power. He knew it was the only way everything would be put right. He didn't doubt that. He doubted himself, his resolve. 

His parents, who were they? That strange woman, he had never asked her name oddly enough, had asked him about his mother and father. His parents were dead, or so he assumed. His mentor had never mentioned anything about them, and he had never really cared to ask. Knowing never seemed that important. It still didn't. He just felt vaguely uneasy, as if he should know, should ask about them. Did Éclair know anything about her parents? Did she care?

No, she wouldn't care. Sacher was her lord, her master, her entire universe. Everything else was merely a distraction that either had to be endured, like himself, or eliminated. He never wanted to be on the receiving end of her ruthless devotion again. 

"What the hell?" Carrot cried when something heavy landed on the roof of the car. The metal bowed under the weight of whatever was on top. Éclair and he stared at the dipping roof in shock. The car swerved and both were thrown violently against their seatbelts. 

"Driver?" Éclair shouted at the man frantically spinning the steering wheel. The man cursed loudly and straightened the wildly veering car. A metallic crunch sounded above and the two teens found the perfect indent of a hand in the roof. 

"What is up there?" the young man demanded as the creator of the indent decided to add another. 

"We're getting out of here." 

"What did you say?"

"Undo your seatbelt. Now!" Confused and more than a little frightened, Carrot obeyed instantly, fumbling at the release button for a second. 

"Got it." Instead of making a reply she flung herself on top of him and, simultaneously, opened his door. Together the two teens hurtled out of the moving car and into the lashing rain. 

Éclair immediately tucked herself into a controlled roll and was on her feet seconds after hitting the ground. Carrot wasn't nearly as skilled. He landed hard, the wind knocked out of him, and rolled until a trio of garbage cans forcefully halted his flailing body. He coughed harshly and struggled to draw air into his lungs. What was going on?

"Get out of here, Carrot. Move it!" He blinked dumbly, mind still rattling around from the fall, and tried to focus on his young bodyguard. Everything blurred unnaturally with the sheeting rain and the pounding in his head. 

Before he could ask her why, she launched herself at a tall shape standing on the other side of the street. The car, he noticed, had spun out of control and crashed into a building. And despite all the noise it must have caused, no one came out to investigate. Where was everyone? Why didn't anyone seem to notice?

The grunts of the blonde and her attacker faded into the background of the storm. Carrot staggered to his feet, using the building behind him as a support, and pulled in painful breaths. She had told him to leave. Someone was trying to kill him. He should run. He couldn't. 

Help…

A sharp pain lanced up his right leg and coiled about the base of his spine. He must've twisted his ankle. Gasping through the pain he hobbled away, guilt eating away. She was supposed to protect him, he knew that, but she could get hurt. He didn't like her, but he didn't hate her either. She was just a kid, just fourteen. 

"Dammit!" He couldn't leave her to fight alone. She was doing it because their mentor had commanded it of her. He heard her cry out and watched as she landed hard upon the street. Then he got a good look at her towering opponent.

Blonde hair, pale blue eyes, Nordic features, so familiar in all respects, so like hers. Carrot froze as the stranger, the killer, turned towards him. The man smiled coldly and cracked his knuckles. At his feet Éclair groaned in pain and struggled to rise. 

"Looks like you have no one to protect you. Poor thing," a dulcet voice sang out behind him. A timeless, nameless dread slithered down his spine. 

"If you play nice, we won't hurt you," a second, huskier voice continued. Those voices wrapped around his mind and he knew nothing but terror. Slowly he turned, every cliché horror movie running through his mind. 

Two young woman stood behind down the street. He choked upon seeing what they were wearing—or rather what they weren't. If truth be told, they weren't wearing all that much despite the unpleasant weather, but what they did wear consisted of black leather and a very scant amount of it to cover their bodies. 

"Please don't make us kill you. If you surrender than everything will be a lot less painful for you," a calm masculine voice informed him. A fourth person appeared, black hair clinging wetly in the deluge. The pain inside the young man's head flared to agonizing life. Their faces, their perfect and sculpted faces, forcefully reminded him of…he couldn't think about it. The pounding in his skull only worsened when he tried to place their faces. 

"No." The word scrapped over his chilled lips. He couldn't go with them and he couldn't let them kill him. "I can't. I won't." 

She was only fourteen…So young…

"He's wants to do it the hard way, sister," one of the women giggled mischievously. 

"Let's oblige him, Tira." He cried out as something pierced his side. He looked down to see a thin silver line running from the growing stain on his hip to the gloved hand of one of the women. She smiled pleasantly at him through the rain. 

He opened his mouth, not knowing what he could possibly say, but a loop of thread snaked about his neck, and tightened. Frantically he scrabbled at the hair-fine line cutting into his throat. He twisted madly, trying to loosen the deceptively fragile noose. 

"Struggling will only make it hurt more," the dark haired man informed him softly. "Relax." He remembered a softer, more humane voice commanding that.

"He looks like a hooked fish with his eyes bulging like that," the blonde man behind him laughed. 

"If you don't cooperate, we have orders to kill you," the woman holding the wire said with a cruel laugh. 

Air, he couldn't breathe. Dark spots floated across his vision. The pain in his ankle had blended into the pain rioting through his head and the desperate motions of his starved lungs. Everything was firebrand agony. 

Darkness rushed up to greet him with the damp glisten of the street. He slammed into the unforgiving asphalt, a loop of thread about his neck and a line of wire in his side. Carrot wondered how it had all come to this.

Had he finally fallen?

For good?

***

This is not the end, just the end of the chapter. I hope you liked it and please don't forget to review with your opinions, but no flames if you can manage that. 


	4. Chapter 4

Fall into Darkness

The four companions gasped and stepped away from their fallen prey at the appearance of a certain purple-haired individual. Mille Feuille glanced at each former Sorcerer Hunter, though still in the service of Big Mama, and flinched inwardly. This new world was a cold womb in which to be conceived. 

"I'll take care of everything now," he told the four deadly teenagers. They shifted uncertainly but finally acquiesced. Sighing at their departure, he leaned over the prone boy. He didn't look well. "Forgive all of us, Carrot. Please." The boy made no reply, not that the man had been expecting any in the first place. Gently Mille brushed back the boy's rain-slicked hair and gazed into his unnaturally pale face. 

Crystal drops of rain splashed into the puddles surrounding them. Mille observed the bleak conditions with distaste. He had to get Carrot back to Mama's headquarters in the older portion of the city. He picked up the boy with great care, as if he was some fragile infant.

What would the boy's former companions feel were they to learn who this was? The man wondered cradling his still charge. No doubt a deep sense of culpability would drown their minds, but they had only been following Big Mama's orders. If she had fully awakened their memories…but she hadn't, and wouldn't. 

They might not recover from the shock.

Would Carrot listen to reason? Or had Sacher completely twisted him? If he didn't then Mama had no choice but to destroy him. One small sacrifice for the greater good was all that was required. If only…

***

The little boy curled in cat-like contentment on his guardian's lap. The man's rich baritone rolled over him and drugged his mind with sleepiness. He was telling a story that the boy had heard many times, yet could never fully understand. All he knew was that he felt completely safe and warm. He wondered if he would feel warm once everything changed, was destroyed. 

"And God cast down Lucifer not only for defying Him, but for questioning Him."

***

The blonde girl stumbled into the room. Deep bruises decorated her face and arms while a latticework of scratches ran across her body. Sacher Torte stared at his ward's bodyguard in mild surprise. He had no need of questions for her condition spoke plainly enough of what had happened. 

"Is he alive?" The girl coughed weakly and nodded as she attempted to stand up straight. "But she has him?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I tried…I tried." The girl broke down in helpless tears. Without a word Sacher Torte scooped up sobbing girl and carried her to her austere room. With the gentleness of a father he tucked her into bed.

"Everything will be fine," he assured her calmly. She sniffed softly, and for, perhaps, the first time he realized that she was still a young girl. For all her strength and posturing, she was still only fourteen. "You have not failed me, Éclair."

"Lord Sacher?" He rested one large hand against her cool forehead. She stared up at him with eyes both young and old. He briefly wondered if she even realized he had robbed her of any chance to live as a normal teenager. 

"Sleep, child." He pressed her head firmly against the pillow and called down enough power to send her into a deep sleep. When her steady, even breaths reached his ears, he left the room and shut the door softly. 

His thoughts turned to his kidnapped ward and a dark shadow fell across his face. Big Mama had proved more audacious than he had predicted. He disliked such surprises. However, he knew the woman would be unable to tamper with the boy's young mind or the sleeping fount of destruction within him. Still, he had to retrieve Carrot before she took drastic actions. 

How dare she take what was rightfully his?

***

He hated the cold. He hated the darkness. If only they would just go away, just cease to be. Everything breathed drafts of icy darkness. So many lost, he could feel them crawling just below his frozen flesh. If only he could see or find some spot of light, then maybe he could endure it. 

If he opened his eyes…

***

An unfamiliar ceiling greeted Carrot upon awaking. Whorls of white plaster converged above his head and formed a slightly off-kilter scallop shell. Off white walls boxed him up. To the left a high window, securely shuttered, offered no view. To the left a thick wood door provided the only escape. No pictures, no adornments, except the ridiculous ceiling and cot beneath him, interrupted the austerity of the room. It felt like some sort of cell…or something. 

He shifted and discovered a playground of small, sharp pains across the entirety of his body. Two especially vicious hurts thundered with his erratic pulse on his hip and around his neck. With sleep-clumsy hands he touched his neck and flinched. Next he explored the sensitivity in his hip and found that it, too, had been bound. 

Had those—

A knife-like agony sliced through his head when he tried to remember who those people had been. Those people who…had attacked him? Yes, that sounded right. He had been attacked.

"Éclair!" Visions of the moody girl lying still upon the wet asphalt filled his mind. Had they, the infamous and mysterious 'they,' taken her as well? Was she awake right now and wondering where she was?

Only fourteen.

He swung his legs off the end of the cot and clutched the sheets to cover his nudity. He had to find clothes, Éclair and a way out. What would his mentor say? He had fallen into the hands of the enemy. Would they torture him? Kill him?

Where were they? Why hadn't they accosted him as soon as he awoke? What was their game? He shivered and looked around the bare room. Perhaps they were watching him now, studying his reactions. 

He wanted to go home.

***

There it is. A little short, I know, but I hope it meets approval. So please drop a line and review.


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